cyber+safety

=The Cybersafety Resource Page=

This is a page to start your collection of resources, ideas, opinions, web sites, good ideas from classroom practice around the issue of Cybersafety.

I want to emphasise the difference between cyberbullying and cybersafety. Keeping our children safe online goes beyond cyberbullying - it's about ensuring that our children and/or our students know not to give away personal details to others on chat rooms; being aware of the type of information they add to their Facebook or Myspace pages ... did you know that the fastest growing group of people who sign up for Facebook are children in Grades 3 & 4 (personal communication I. Snyder, July 2009). While we don't like to think about it, there are people in the wider community who don't have the care of our children at heart - there are damaged people who prey on the vulnerabilities of children (and of adults in a lot of instances). We need to ensure that we are aware of the issues, and have those big discussions with our children (we need to do that as parents) ... but we also need to ensure this awareness is raised in our schools as well. It might be an unpleasant issue, but it won't go away just because we put our heads in the sand. We need to talk about it ... we need to ensure we can answer the question ...how do we keep our children //safe?//

As with all risky behaviours (walking across a busy road, climbing a tree, flying, playing sport, learning something new) we need to alert people to risk and how to minimise that risk. We cannot remove all risk from our children's lives, as that would mean wrapping them in something they aren't allergic to and not letting them out of our sight. It's not a sustainable way to live, or to raise children. It's not an effective way to educate someone either. You, as parents and pre-service teachers, need to be aware of the risks and of the information available to help educate our students, and our parents about keeping children safe online. We run fire-safety, water-safety, and road-safety programs in our schools ... we need to run cyber-safety ones as well.

When I was reading a newspaper article on the Archbishop Nichols' views on social networking I found a link to another story in the Education section of the same paper. The story was about a first-year out teacher being charged with child sexual molestation and sexual grooming. This term caught my eye, and as I hadn't heard it before I thought I'd investigate further. Again, it highlights the need for parents, and teachers, to be aware of practices used by some in the community to do the wrong thing. I found a paper published on the Australian Institute of Criminology web site ... the paper is titled [|Responding to online child sexual grooming: An industry perspective]. The paper has a section towards the end on the place of education in raising awareness of this practice and keeping our children safe in the face of it.

I also went to NetLingo (which is quite disturbing so I'm not going to put the link up) and found that in chat rooms or social networking sites: CD9 - Code 9 - parents are around P911 - Parent Alert PAL - Parents Are Listening PAW - Parents Are Watching PIR - Parent In Room MOS - Mom Over Shoulder LMIRL - Let's Meet In Real Life ADR - Address ASL - Age/Sex/Location

KPC - Keeping Parents Clueless

Here is one resource which has information for keeping children safe online. Please add your own ... [|CyberSmart Program]  Here is a resource (video) from Teachers TV about [|**Online Safety**] - for secondary students/teachers

__**Useful websites on Cybersaftey:**__
 * = **__ Type of document: __** ||= **__ Web site address __** ||
 * = Teachers resource - guide to cybersafety ||= [|ozguide] ||
 * = Web guide with good information for teachers, parents and students af all ages. ||= www.cybersmartkids.com.au ||
 * = An informative website about staying safe online - with a focus on identity online - and password use ||= www.staysmartonline.gov.au ||
 * = Teaching the basic rule of e-safety to children and parents ||= [|www.ikeepsafe.org] ||
 * = Amazing resource designed with areas specific to young kids, kids, teens, parent, teachers etc. So may links to a wide variety of age specific issue with computer generated stories to teach cyber safety. Worth a look. ||= [] ||
 * = A fun website for younger children about using the internet safely. ||= [] ||
 * = Cyber safety for grade 4-6: fun cartoon like stories including "Golden Rules" and a teachers guide pdf. download, also for parents to view. ||= [] ||
 * Safe use of the internet for 2-7 year olds. Parents support their child through adventures in "Netty's World". 5 forget-me-not rules reinforced in each adventure. || www.nettysworld.com.au ||